Deuteronomy 32:39

The Vindication of the Lord

32:39 “See now that I, indeed I, am he!” says the Lord, ¹ 

“and there is no other god besides me.

I kill and give life,

I smash and I heal,

and none can resist ²  my power.

Deuteronomy 32:1

Invocation of Witnesses

32:1 Listen, O heavens, and I will speak;

hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.

Deuteronomy 17:1-2

17:1 You must not sacrifice to him ³  a bull or sheep that has a blemish or any other defect, because that is considered offensive ⁴  to the Lord your God. 17:2 Suppose a man or woman is discovered among you – in one of your villages ⁵  that the Lord your God is giving you – who sins before the Lord your God ⁶  and breaks his covenant

Deuteronomy 4:32-35

The Uniqueness of Israel’s God

4:32 Indeed, ask about the distant past, starting from the day God created humankind ⁷  on the earth, and ask ⁸  from one end of heaven to the other, whether there has ever been such a great thing as this, or even a rumor of it. 4:33 Have a people ever heard the voice of God speaking from the middle of fire, as you yourselves have, and lived to tell about it? 4:34 Or has God ⁹  ever before tried to deliver ¹⁰  a nation from the middle of another nation, accompanied by judgments, ¹¹  signs, wonders, war, strength, power, ¹²  and other very terrifying things like the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes? 4:35 You have been taught that the Lord alone is God – there is no other besides him.

Deuteronomy 5:7

5:7 You must not have any other gods ¹³  besides me. ¹⁴ 

Acts 26:8

26:8 Why do you people ¹⁵  think ¹⁶  it is unbelievable ¹⁷  that ¹⁸  God raises the dead?

Romans 4:17-19

4:17 (as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”). ¹⁹  He is our father ²⁰  in the presence of God whom he believed – the God who ²¹  makes the dead alive and summons the things that do not yet exist as though they already do. ²²  4:18 Against hope Abraham ²³  believed ²⁴  in hope with the result that he became the father of many nations ²⁵  according to the pronouncement, ²⁶  “so will your descendants be.” ²⁷  4:19 Without being weak in faith, he considered ²⁸  his own body as dead ²⁹  (because he was about one hundred years old) and the deadness of Sarah’s womb.

[32:39]  ¹ tn Verses 39-42 appear to be a quotation of the Lord and so the introductory phrase “says the Lord” is supplied in the translation for clarity.

[32:39]  ² tn Heb “deliver from” (so NRSV, NLT).

[17:1]  ³ tn Heb “to the Lord your God.” See note on “he” in 16:1.

[17:1]  ⁴ tn The Hebrew word תּוֹעֵבָה (to’evah, “an abomination”; cf. NAB) describes persons, things, or practices offensive to ritual or moral order. See M. Grisanti, NIDOTTE 4:314-18; see also the note on the word “abhorrent” in Deut 7:25.

[17:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “gates.”

[17:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “does the evil in the eyes of the Lord your God.”

[4:32]  ⁷ tn The Hebrew term אָדָם (’adam) may refer either to Adam or, more likely, to “man” in the sense of the human race (“mankind,” “humankind”). The idea here seems more universal in scope than reference to Adam alone would suggest.

[4:32]  ⁸ tn The verb is not present in the Hebrew text but has been supplied in the translation for clarification. The challenge has both temporal and geographical dimensions. The people are challenged to (1) inquire about the entire scope of past history and (2) conduct their investigation on a worldwide scale.

[4:34]  ⁹ tn The translation assumes the reference is to Israel’s God in which case the point is this: God’s intervention in Israel’s experience is unique in the sense that he has never intervened in such power for any other people on earth. The focus is on the uniqueness of Israel’s experience. Some understand the divine name here in a generic sense, “a god,” or “any god.” In this case God’s incomparability is the focus (cf. v. 35, where this theme is expressed).

[4:34]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “tried to go to take for himself.”

[4:34]  ¹¹ tn Heb “by testings.” The reference here is the judgments upon Pharaoh in the form of plagues. See Deut 7:19 (cf. v. 18) and 29:3 (cf. v. 2).

[4:34]  ¹² tn Heb “by strong hand and by outstretched arm.”

[5:7]  ¹³ tn Heb “there must not be for you other gods.” The expression “for you” indicates possession.

[5:7]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “upon my face,” or “before me” (עַל־פָּנָיַ, ’al-panaya). Some understand this in a locative sense: “in my sight.” The translation assumes that the phrase indicates exclusion. The idea is that of placing any other god before the Lord in the sense of taking his place. Contrary to the view of some, this does not leave the door open for a henotheistic system where the Lord is the primary god among others. In its literary context the statement must be taken in a monotheistic sense. See, e.g., 4:39; 6:13-15.

[26:8]  ¹⁵ tn The word “people” is not in the Greek text, but has been supplied to indicate that the second person pronoun (“you”) is plural (others in addition to King Agrippa are being addressed).

[26:8]  ¹⁶ tn BDAG 568 s.v. κρίνω 3 states, “τί ἄπιστον κρίνεται παρ᾿ ὑμῖν; why do you think it is incredible? Ac 26:8.” The passive construction (“why is it thought unbelievable…”) has been converted to an active one to simplify the translation.

[26:8]  ¹⁷ tn Or “incredible.” BDAG 103 s.v. ἄπιστος 1 states, “unbelievable, incredible…τί ἄπιστον κρίνεται παρ᾿ ὑμῖν…; why does it seem incredible to you? Ac 26:8.”

[26:8]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “if.” The first-class conditional construction, which assumes reality for the sake of argument, has been translated as indirect discourse.

[4:17]  ¹⁹ tn Verses 16-17 comprise one sentence in Greek, but this has been divided into two sentences due to English requirements.

[4:17]  ²⁰ tn The words “He is our father” are not in the Greek text but are supplied to show that they resume Paul’s argument from 16b. (It is also possible to supply “Abraham had faith” here [so REB], taking the relative clause [“who is the father of us all”] as part of the parenthesis, and making the connection back to “the faith of Abraham,” but such an option is not as likely [C. E. B. Cranfield, Romans [ICC], 1:243].)

[4:17]  ²¹ tn “The God” is not in the Greek text but is supplied for clarity.

[4:17]  ²² tn Or “calls into existence the things that do not exist.” The translation of ὡς ὄντα (Jw" onta) allows for two different interpretations. If it has the force of result, then creatio ex nihilo is in view and the variant rendering is to be accepted (so C. E. B. Cranfield, Romans [ICC], 1:244). A problem with this view is the scarcity of ὡς plus participle to indicate result (though for the telic idea with ὡς plus participle, cf. Rom 15:15; 1 Thess 2:4). If it has a comparative force, then the translation given in the text is to be accepted: “this interpretation fits the immediate context better than a reference to God’s creative power, for it explains the assurance with which God can speak of the ‘many nations’ that will be descended from Abraham” (D. Moo, Romans [NICNT], 282; so also W. Sanday and A. C. Headlam, Romans [ICC], 113). Further, this view is in line with a Pauline idiom, viz., verb followed by ὡς plus participle (of the same verb or, in certain contexts, its antonym) to compare present reality with what is not a present reality (cf. 1 Cor 4:7; 5:3; 7:29, 30 (three times), 31; Col 2:20 [similarly, 2 Cor 6:9, 10]).

[4:18]  ²³ tn Grk “he”; the referent (Abraham) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[4:18]  ²⁴ tn Grk “who against hope believed,” referring to Abraham. The relative pronoun was converted to a personal pronoun and, because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

[4:18]  ²⁵ sn A quotation from Gen 17:5.

[4:18]  ²⁶ tn Grk “according to that which had been spoken.”

[4:18]  ²⁷ sn A quotation from Gen 15:5.

[4:19]  ²⁸ tc Most mss (D F G Ψ 33 1881 Ï it) read “he did not consider” by including the negative particle (οὐ, ou), but others (א A B C 6 81 365 1506 1739 pc co) lack οὐ. The reading which includes the negative particle probably represents a scribal attempt to exalt the faith of Abraham by making it appear that his faith was so strong that he did not even consider the physical facts. But “here Paul does not wish to imply that faith means closing one’s eyes to reality, but that Abraham was so strong in faith as to be undaunted by every consideration” (TCGNT 451). Both on external and internal grounds, the reading without the negative particle is preferred.

[4:19]  ²⁹ tc ‡ Most witnesses (א A C D Ψ 33 Ï bo) have ἤδη (hdh, “already”) at this point in v. 19. But B F G 630 1739 1881 pc lat sa lack it. Since it appears to heighten the style of the narrative and since there is no easy accounting for an accidental omission, it is best to regard the shorter text as original. NA²⁷ includes the word in brackets, indicating doubt as to its authenticity.